The Hands of Fate
by Jestus the Strange
Summary: The Rapturian Race is long living indeed. Being rewritten as well... maybe.


…**A Year Earlier…**

She tightened the shawl around her body and walked through the desert, her piercing yet somehow soft teal colored eyes focused on something ahead of her while her hands held the ripped and torn fabric tightly to her body. She had been walking through the desert for a couple of hours, having set off when she had felt something try and touch her conscious as it died. She knew what it was and that made her hasten her pace even more, wondering what had been so powerful as to kill a King Scarbora.

_It can't be him, could it? _She thought as she started to pick out trails of tire tracks leading off to the west. She lifted her hand and whispered a few words in the ancient Cerian dialect, her eyes glowing slightly with power as a magical recreation of the buggy that had driven through assembled itself infront of her. She got into the buggy and it drove her towards the place where the Scarbora had died.

It took her a little under an hour to catch up to the fading tendrils of natural magic that the Scarbora was sending off its body. They were slightly tainted with the stench of decay, which was represented by a sickly green color that fluctuated between an evil shade of purple and back again. She tightened the shawl around her muzzle, trying to filter the stench that the rotting magic held for her and she squinted against the bright light of the sun as it burned down on her head, making her wish she had the ability to change the weather. When the ghostly buggy came to a halt next to the Scarbora, the stench was nearly overpowering her and she had to struggle to get next to it.

"Who could achieve such strength to kill you?" She whispered as she placed her glowing palm against its forehead and began sifting through its recent memories, feeling the usual disgusted feeling she got when she had to do these things. The flow of magic nearly incinerated the Scarbora when she saw someone she didn't think she would ever see again. She pulled the memory from his mind and implanted it into herself, wanting to keep it incase it was true. She quickly climbed back into the buggy and let it drive her to the city of Negev, hoping that she wasn't too late to save her friend.

The buggy passed through the cloaking shield that hid the city from view near the afternoon and she ended the spell and wrapped the shawl around her so she looked like a beggar and began roaming the streets, taking care to avoid the armed patrolmen who liked to pick on the citizens of the surrounding city while gathering tidbits of information from the various conversations around her. It seemed that the current overlord of the city, a wolf by the name of Alexander Gatoran, had recently purchased a rare sort of pet and that he was going to show her off at the annual Feast of Kings (Feast of the Scarbora, but the townsfolk called it by many a name).

_Hazel no doubt. _She thought sadly as she ambled past a couple idle guards talking to each other. She heard the rumble of a buggy and turned her head in time to see the buggy that had driven to this place drive slowly by, the driver a blue furred vixen with a heavy, weather-proofed jacket and a horrid look on her face. She turned around to follow the buggy and uttered a softly spoken charm to render herself unnoticeable so that she could run after the vixen as the buggy picked up speed, as it got closer to the cloaked entrance. She weaved in between the mingling crowds, trying desperately to keep up with the buggy, as it was her only lead to her friend's whereabouts.

The buggy stopped abruptly infront of rundown building with a sign that simply read 'Pub and Hostel' hanging above the wooden door. The vixen got out and grabbed a sack that was sitting in the passenger seat before walking into the pub with her feet dragging on the ground. Her shadowy follower slipped into the pub after her and immediately took a seat close to the door at the nearest empty table. She eyed her warily and pulled her shawl back slightly so that it revealed her sapphire blue hair and her ears with a single loop of gold coming out from the tip of her right ear while keeping her muzzle and neck covered.

"Hey, barkeep, what you got that's strong?" The vixen asked with a slight sniff as she looked down at the bar infront of her. The bartender, a burly looking and well-built man with a scowl that looked permanently plastered on his face, looked up from where he was leaning against the same counter and looked underneath it before pulling out a large bottle of amber liquid. He was about to hand it to her when he stopped and thought about something.

"You got enough scratch to pay for this?" He asked. She nodded sadly and produced the sack of money she had brought with her from the buggy. He nodded in approval and slid the bottle towards her. She caught the bottle in her open hand and popped the cork with her claw before lifting the mouth to her lips and taking a long drink from it, the amber liquid burning her throat and making her forget about the strange vixen she had sold off to that creep Alexander.

Her silent observer in the corner of the pub watched her with a sort of growing sense of pity. She could feel the sadness literally rolling off of her and it made her want to go over and console her, but she needed to get some answers from her first. She was about to get up when a pair of hands clasped her shoulders and forced her back down into her seat.

"Sit and stay around a while." A deep voice ordered as a cat sat across from her with a lopsided grin on his face. He was wearing a garment bearing Alexander's personal coat of arms and colored in the normal crimson and black that was worn by captains of his personal guard. The guard behind him was another captain, but he was a little low on the chain of command, being the newest one to be welcomed into the fold and was eager to reap the benefits of being a captain.

"I don't want any trouble." She whispered, her voice that of someone who'd seen too much mixed with that of someone who abhorred violence. The feline infront of her laughed, a horrid, raspy sound from the years of smoking imported opium, and propped his feet up on the tabletop, his boots making a loud clunking noise against it.

"And neither do I, but you see, me and my friend here couldn't help seeing you enter all sneaky like and we were wondering why you would have to do something like that unless you were looking for someone who might be able to give you some sort of contact to resistance fighting Alexander's rule." He said with a sort of glint in his eyes that hinted to a much more evil intent behind his scheme.

"I have done nothing of the sort, captain. I only came in here to escape the slightly glaring sun from off of the sand." She whispered, a hint of anger starting to creep into her quiet voice as she lightly clenched her fists in her lap.

"Ah, but who would Alexander believe: You or a respected and high ranking captain in his guard? I could arrest you for treason and you would never see the light of day again or… you could perform certain services for me and my friend here and I forget this little incident ever happened." He replied; relishing in the power of his position and the amount of girls he could have his way with without ever fearing consequence.

"But you never offered me a third choice?" She said with a dark look in her eyes as she noticed that the other vixen had been cautiously making her way over to them, her hand slowly reaching beneath her jacket for something.

"And what would that third choice be, my succulent looking vixen?" The feline said, leaning back in his chair so that the front two legs were in the air. She and the other vixen smirked at the same time.

"This."

They moved at the same time, her lashing out with her hand straight up into the short captain's neck and slamming into his throat, making him gag and quickly let go of her to grab his own neck while the other vixen unsheathed the blaster she had hidden beneath her jacket and shot the legs out from the chair so that he fell flat on his back, his eyes wide in surprise and pain as she stomped onto his chest to keep him down, the blaster aimed between his eyes.

"You really know how to piss me off, don't you Leicester?" The vixen growled. He stared up at her with a look of utter contempt.

"Get off of me Isabella or I might have to tell Alexander- ARGH!" He yelped as she stomped her foot down onto his chest again, cracking his breastbone with the pressure and making him stare cross-eyed at the barrel as she pressed it down onto his face.

"Hey, you all right?" Bella asked as the other vixen looked up from where she had knocked out the other captain, her foot on his throat and making sure he couldn't breathe as easily as he wanted.

"Yeah, though I would've been able to get out of it myself, Cerian." She said in a strong voice, making her stop and look up at her to see that she was glaring at her.

"How did you know I was Cerian?" Bella asked. The other vixen smirked in irritation and moved her shawl so that it showed her muzzle.

"Because I'm Cerian too." She said as she walked over to her and glared down at Leicester, contemplating whether to kill him or make him suffer horrible nightmares that plagued him till he took his own life.

"Does that make you Krystal?" Bella asked. She looked up at her and thought about using her mercenary name, but decided against it.

"Yes, it does. And you know a vixen named Hazel, don't you?" Krystal asked. The other Cerian looked down and squeezed the trigger multiple times, pumping the unfortunate captain's head with several searing blasts of super heated metal.

"I do and I plan on saving her from the hell hole I placed her in." She muttered darkly as she looked up at her with a pained look in her amethyst colored eyes. Krystal sighed and murmured another spell under her breath to wipe the memory of everyone in the pub.

"Why don't you tell me about what you did and I might be able to help you. Do you mind buying us a room here so we can get some privacy?" She asked as she headed over to the other captain and did the same to him, this time replacing it with new memories to make him think he were someone else.

"Sure, but if I'm telling you about myself, then your telling me who you are. Deal?" Bella asked as she looked up to find Krystal already walking over to the stairs that led to the second floor, her shawl dragging against the floor and parting a little to reveal the white tip of her tail splayed out in a messy arrangement that mentioned neglect to her fur.

"Good. Ask for number four." She called over her shoulder as she quickly made her way up the steps, leaving Bella in brooding silence to clean up her mess.

"She is not going to boss me around, no matter who she is." She muttered under her breath as she shoved her blaster roughly into its holstered and went to do what she had been asked.

Krystal sat on the small bed with a sigh and looked around at her surroundings with a small twinge of nostalgia. The room reminded her distantly of the room she had once slept in with Fox McCloud on the Great Fox. Her hand absentmindedly went up to her neck and felt the contours of the necklace she had been wearing when he had freed her from the crystal cocoon on Sauria, the memories of the time she had spent with him coming to mind and making a tear spill from her eye.

"I'm sorry Fox, but there is someone who needs my help more than you at the moment…" She trailed, grasping her necklace gently and letting her emotions swirl around her in the form of magic, the multicolored hues meaning different emotions; a bright yellow to represent the joy she felt in her heart at the thought that she would meet her friend again, black for a deep hatred for the one that was holding her captive, a deep blue for the sadness she harbored for leaving Fox and many others that mixed into a sort of rainbow of light around her.

Bella walked undecidedly towards the room marked number four and went through the plan in her head many times, feeling as if she could seduce her answers out of the other Cerian or at least get somewhere with her. She stopped infront of the door, her staff in hand and a tired, almost dead look in her eyes as she took a deep breath and pushed the door open quickly, trying to catch her by surprise. The instant the door was opened, she was sucked into the room and the door shut with an audible bang that rebounded down the hallway.

Krystal sat cross-legged in the center of the room with her staff standing upright infront of her, eyes bright with power as the gem at the atop the staff glowed brighter the closer Bella was drawn to it. The wind was whipping around inside the room, throwing the thin, scratchy sheets around it and making the candles that lit the room flicker and die, leaving the glow of the gem to light it.

_What's going on? I feel warm, but the wind should be biting into my face… _She thought, feeling the grip on her staff slack until it too was standing upright infront of her, the twin blades gleaming as the runes started glowing bright silver and added to the glow in the room.

_That weapon you carry… it is not of Cerian origin. Where did you steal it from, girl? _A ghostly, disembodied voice accused, the question reverberating around in her skull. Bella gasped in shock and tried to look around for the source of the voice, but she couldn't seem to get her body to listen at the moment. Something forced her to walk forward and sit opposite the concentrating vixen, her eyes now closed as if she were in a trance and her head dipping down so that her chin rested against her chest.

_I didn't steal it. I was given it as a sort of 'graduation' gift from the wolf Alexander. _She thought venomously, resisting the urge to hit something when she thought of his name.

_I see. Are you aware of this staff's origins or even it's history? _It growled heavily into her head, making her cringe and shake her head mentally. The voice sighed, which sounded like a hiss, and she felt a pressure bear down on her, as it seemed to envelope her mind. Pictures rushed into her mind; mindless destruction, bloodied bodies with heads and limbs missing, a lone warrior standing in the middle of the slaughter as if waiting for others to come at him, his eyes wild with bloodlust and his body covered in what looked to be ghostly armor. The presence in her mind held her their, forcing her to absorb the painful, horrible memories that the blade held within it.

When she thought her mind would collapse from the sheer amount of death, a second, seemingly serene presence overlapped the hostile one and snuffed it out, giving Bella control of her body and mind again while at the same time sucking her own consciousness into her subconscious, her being recreated through the use of the spell Krystal was using.

_Thank you… Krystal? Is that you? _She asked hesitantly, looking around in the darkness for something or someone to tell her where she was. The vixen across from her stirred in her self induced coma and a twitch of a smile formed on her lips, while the second presence took the shape of what she wanted to be seen as, a young vixen in a flowing ball gown that was colored several shades darker than her fur. The scenery around them changed to a sort of study with a fire crackling in the fireplace, the flames a strange bluish green. The young kit signaled for Bella to sit down infront of her on the opposite chair and she obliged hesitantly, missing the familiar weight of her blaster against the small of her back.

_No, I am the mental embodiment of her staff. You may call me Eurza. You need to learn to control your blade better, but I guess it is to be expected from a Cerian who knows nothing of magic. _The young kit shrugged her slender shoulders with a gentle giggle, making her feel as if she were being insulted.

_And you do? Sorry to break it to you, Eurza, but I don't believe in all that junk about magic. If I can't hold it in my hand or see it with my own two eyes, then I don't think it works. _She replied with an indignant sniff as she glared at her. The kit shook her head with an exasperated sigh and let the spell ebb away until they were sitting in their room again, Krystal looking exhausted with heavy bags under her eyes while Bella looked confused, her eyes darting from side to side as she pinched herself to make sure she hadn't been dreaming.

"I understand why you sold Hazel into captivity, Isabella." She murmured, picking up her staff from where it lay on the ground and used it to help her stand before making her way over to the bed that was closest to the window so she could have a cool breeze play over her in her sleep, knowing full well that she would need it.

"How did you know that?" Bella asked, shocked into almost silence by the use of her first name and how she had known about Hazel being sold. Krystal sat down hard on top of the bed with a sigh and flopped down onto her back.

"I sifted through your memories while you were occupied with the malevolent soul trapped in your staff. You feel guilty that you had to use someone you just met to get your plan into motion, but I understand why you did it. If you hadn't, Alexander would've kept breathing down your neck about finding him a new pet and he would've eventually returned you into servitude, or at least that's what you fear. But I must say, you have very complex emotions for a runner, especially towards her." She sighed and ran a hand through her hair before thinking back to the first time she had felt those same emotions, a shiver running down her spine.

"And how would you know about that? You've never had these feelings before, have you?" She spat venomously, feeling vulnerable with the vixen in the room with her. Krystal laughed and looked over at her scathingly.

"I know more about the subject than you can ever dream. So get over your little bout of bisexuality and own up to the fact that you want to know Hazel more intimately. I know for a fact that she might even consider wanting to be with you for awhile, but you'll never know if you don't get her out of the palace, now will you?" She retorted, making Bella blush a deep shade of violet at the thought of sleeping with Hazel.

"But why would she want to sleep with me? I'm the one who put her in that spot in the first place. I doubt she'd want nothing more than to kill me if she saw me. I-" She was cut off when Krystal threw a pillow at her head and knocked her flat on her back, cause the pillows were heavy from being overstuffed with feathers and other things that were considered soft.

"What did I just get done telling you?" She asked angrily, getting tired of her attitude. Bella took the pillow from over her face and felt sand trickle down onto her forehead from a rip in the material. She sat up and threw the pillow back at her, but it was cut down in mid-air and sliced neatly in half by the blade she had kept hidden underneath the shawl. "You have to do better than that, Isabella."

She scowled and climbed up onto the other bed and turned her back to the other vixen. "Fine then. I will." She muttered loud enough for Krystal to here her before feeling the dregs of exhaustion clawing at her and let them pull her under, sending her into an uneventful sleep.

"I look forward to it." She muttered, the ghost of a smile pulling at the corners of her lips.

… **A Month Later…**

"Why are you taking me out here, Krystal? The raid isn't until tonight and you know the old Rapturian ruins aren't exactly close to Alexander's palace." Bella stated as they drove towards a dip in the endless sand dunes that they had been driving through. Krystal just smiled and waved the question off with a casual flick of her wrist. She had continued wearing her shawl, but it wouldn't stay on her if she had any say in the matter.

"You'll see, Bella. Just keep driving and I'll tell you when we get there." She replied with a playful punch to her arm as she let her free hand drag along the sand beneath them, the layer of magic laced around her fingers keeping them safe while her claws made slight furrows in the ground.

"You better be right about this, Krys, else I'm leaving you out here." She said with a grin as she let up on the accelerator so that they glided up the last dune and the buggy drifted to a stop at the crest of the dune, giving them a glorious view of the once great city of Wder. The once swooping terraces that lined the countless buildings were corroded with age; shambles of their former selves while the streets lay cracked and eroded from the planet's unpredictable flash floods in the region.

"This can't be right… there should be no one here…" Krystal murmured to herself before signaling Bella to kill the engine and let them push it down the hill instead. She did as she was told and they gently eased the buggy down into the basin that surrounded the city, making sure not to bring unwanted attention to them with unnecessary noise. They slipped into what looked to be a rough representation of a bakery and hid the buggy underneath a tarp that they had found in the back before Krystal uttered a spell that cast a little more shadow to conceal it better.

"Krystal, what's wrong? You said there was someone here, but this place has been deserted for nearly almost a thousand years. Aside from the occasional raider like myself, that is." Bella said; taking her blaster and a heavier looking assault rifle she had bought from a merchant stopping off at the planet out from a black case on the back of the borrowed armored buggy. Krystal motioned with her fingers for her to keep her voice down and let her training from being with StarFox kick in as she closed her eyes and muttered a quiet spell so that she could know how many people were in her impromptu home.

"There are eight people here, Bella. Two in the cemetery, four in the communal market, one in the public baths and one…" She trailed as the sound of boots clomping on the ceiling above them drifted down to them.

"Right above us?" Bella whispered with a hint of humor in her voice as she fit a silencer onto the tip of her assault rifle and slipped a clip into the barrel, pulling the slide back to put a bullet in the chamber. "I'll be right back."

She ran quietly to the set of stairs behind the wall at the back, taking care to avoid the scattered pottery and such on the ground to keep from making unnecessary noise. Krystal watched her go and sighed before returning to the spell and stopped dead, her heart skyrocketing to her throat. The other seven stars of light she had seen were all converging on them, each one with their own affinity to magic, though they were nowhere near as powerful as she was. She opened her eyes and quickly grabbed her staff before making sure her own standard issue blaster was nearby in her holster, letting the memories wash back over her as she remembered Fox teaching her how to shoot it.

_No, not now, reminisce after our lives aren't in jeopardy. _She thought to herself as she wrapped the shawl around herself and made sure to blend into the wall behind her before slipping out into the stifling desert heat, the air around her shimmering and waving in the heat. _Feels good to be fighting again._ She thought before running off, trying to cut the first one off at the bathhouses.

Bella slowly walked up onto the second floor and listened for the sounds of boots or anything that would give the person away and was rewarded with a heavy sigh that drifted on the light, desert air from the room next to her.

_Looks like your luck ran out today, buddy._ She thought with a grin as she quickly spun around the corner of the door and aimed down the custom Smith & Wesson scope she had made for the rifle to find that no one was there. She lowered the rifle with a stunned look and took a step into the room before feeling as if she had been slugged in the chest with a sledgehammer, the force knocking her off her feet and sending her crashing to the ground, the rifle sliding from her grip to the far corner of the room with a clatter.

"Oh, I hit the jackpot today. A fine looking vixen for my pleasure and enjoyment." A creepy and eager voice said delightfully as if from thin air next to her ear. She groaned in pain and felt something press her wrists to the ground, but she shook herself from the stupor quickly and lashed out with her foot to connect with the soft flesh in the fork between their legs. The man let out a gurgling cry and slumped onto his side, becoming fully visible to her as the spell he had been using failed. She growled deeply and rolled quickly to her feet before slipping the blaster from its holster and flicked the tiny switch next to the grip so a small, silent burst that would melt through almost anything if left there too long would catapult the bullet faster than need be, but she needed it to be quiet.

"Hope you like where you're going." She muttered darkly as she shot a single bullet through his head, the flesh around the entry wound being melted to a horrible smelling slag puddle. She holstered the blaster and quickly grabbed her rifle before stepping over to the window, feeling her stomach sink a little as she thought what it would mean if the other seven could use magic. "Damn. I hope Krys can handle herself without me," She muttered as she unlatched the legs from the underbelly of the rifle and set them up on the window sill, making sure that she had a good sniper position to keep things at bay but just to be safe she switched the scope's view to infrared and flipped a switch on the housing of the stock to compensate for the sun's glare.

The mage had been relieving himself in the bathroom when Krystal found him, much to his dismay, for he hadn't been able to use the bathroom since he had left the palace in Negev. He wasn't the picture of good health and wellness, but she could feel the amount of power he exuded even from the entrance to the bathhouses. It made her sweat a little, but she calmed her nerves and continued into the cooling shade of the entrance hall, the soft clink of her staff against her back giving her away to the magical alarm he had put up around the building the minute he had walked in.

_It always has to be when I'm takin' a piss, don't it? _He thought sullenly as he zipped up his pants and fit his hood over his head before walking off in Krystal's direction, having a heated argument with himself about whether or not he should ask Alexander to let him out of servitude or not. When he found her, she was sitting in the corner with her head lolled to the side and blood matting her hair, which looked to be plastered to her forehead with sweat. Her chest was heaving with the effort to catch her breath and her eyes were glazed with exhaustion, her heart hammering against her ribcage. He sighed and walked over to her before kneeling next to her, making sure that he was between her and the exit.

"Hey, are you feeling alright? You don't look to good." He said, his blue eyes twinkling with concern as he looked at the fearful look in her eyes, the way they darted from side to side and how she cringed away from him when he tried to touch her shoulder.

_Damn. I think that security spell I put up might've made her mute. Man, Alexander's gonna have my ass for this._ He grumbled mentally as he placed his palm onto her forehead and released the spell on her so she would be able to talk. But then something went wrong. He couldn't staunch the flow of the magic going into her and only too late did he realize that he had been tricked. The blaster slipped into a space between two of his ribs and he was dead before he could utter a cry for help.

Krystal waited until he as completely drained of his magic before pushing him off of her and standing up, wiping the blood from her brow and smearing it onto the wall in the mark of the banished that her people branded on criminals and the like back on her home planet. When she was done, she slipped her blaster into the holster on her hip and continued off towards the others, knowing that she would have to kill them to keep them quiet.

_Hey Bella, how're you holding up? _She asked mentally, knowing that she would hear her.

_I'm holding up all right, but I can't watch every angle forever. Some of them have guns, but they aren't anything like my LR2. Just hurry back so I won't have to take them on alone. Wouldn't want to hog all the glory. _She joked as she took a couple of potshots at the nearest mage that had dared to make a run for it. He was gunned down before he had made it four feet. _But feel free to take your time. _

_Same old Bella. All right, I'm on my way. Afterwards I need your help in the palace, cause there's something else here that might not bode well with our disturbances. _Krystal thought back before running back over to the bakery, failing to notice the eyes watching her from the palace, or rather the presence that was watching her.

She ran until she was back at the bakery and extended her staff before slinking behind one of the people hiding from Bella and cracked him over the head with it, figuring that it would be better to have at least one hostage to use as bait than one of them when they came to the palace. He went down silently and she put her staff back in favor for her blaster, proceeding to use strips of his uniform to tie and gag him before proceeding to kill the rest of them from the shadows, wishing she had decided to bring the knife in the pack so she wouldn't waste the ammo.

_Bella? _She called out as the last one fell, his head blown clean off his shoulders and now adorned the wall behind him as a nice piece of splatter art.

"Yeah, what is it?" She said from right behind her. She turned and smiled grimly at her as she wiped off her gun and put it back before motioning with her finger to where she had hidden their bait.

"Up for a little grave robbing?"

"And you're saying that we have to go in there?" Bella asked nervously, never having been this deep into the ruins before and she was a little creeped out about the fact that they were planning on going deep into the catacombs beneath the city. Krystal nodded and reached into the pack that was on the buggy before fishing out a couple of flashlights and a wicked looking combat knife that she had 'borrowed' from someone a while back.

"That's what I'm saying, but don't worry. The buggy'll be coming with us, so you won't have to set foot on the ground in there." She said with a grin as she looked down at their captive and gave him a somewhat gentle kick in the side, making him groan and struggle against the bonds he was in.

"Yeah, okay, but whenever someone mentions catacombs and such, that usually means walking through old, decaying rooms with smells that would kill you if left alone long enough." She muttered as she looked up at the sky, shading her eyes from the sun's glare as she grimaced when she heard the sound of the extra shotgun she always kept in the buggy being cocked.

"That is the general idea, but our friend here is going to keep whatever's in the palace occupied and we go through the catacombs to Alexander's palace. Hopefully, there might be a nice set of tools down there that I have stashed away to help, but knowing the raiders on this planet, they're probably gone by now." Krystal replied with a smile as she walked up to the palace's main doors and placed a glowing palm to it before pushing out with her mind to force the doors open, the massive slabs of stone grinding against each other and sprinkling dust onto her head. She continued to push them open until they were open wide enough to let Bella drive the buggy comfortably into the palace and released the flow of magic with an exhausted sigh, her legs trembling to keep her upright and her eyes slightly bloodshot.

"You didn't have to do that, Krystal. We could've just blown a hole in it with some C4." Bella said with concern as she watched her lean against the buggy for support.

"No… no, we wouldn't. If we blew up the doors, then the shockwaves alone could potentially bring the rest of the palace down on us and it would make the catacombs inaccessible to us." She panted before ambling tiredly over to the passenger's side of the buggy and positioning the hostage into the gunnery chair so that he wouldn't fall out easily.

"Whatever you say, Krys. But what about the thing in there?" She asked, her imagination trying to think up a perfect substitute for something that wouldn't want them to be there. As if on some sort of cue, a loud, earth shattering roar greeted them, the sound alone able to shake the small buggy as if it had been hit by a sand storm, the ground beneath them shaking violently as one of the guard outposts nearby simply disintegrated to a pile of rocks.

_That answer your question? _Krystal asked mentally, covering her ears with her hands as she felt as if she were going to be deafened by the noise. The captive's ears began to bleed from the sheer amount of power that was being crashed down upon them, wave after wave that threatened to swallow them whole and never let them see the light of day again. But then it stopped, leaving everything deathly quiet, as if nothing had happened. Bella blinked a few times and touched the corner of her eye to find that she had been crying blood.

_What the hell was that! _She cried mentally, finding her throat was tight with fear and her hand was gripping the steering wheel so hard that her claws were cutting into her palm. Krystal shook her head to clear it of the ringing in her ears.

_That was what we have to get passed. And next time, don't shout in my head! _Krystal yelled back, making her cringe at the sound as it rebounded in her head. _Anyway, we won't have to worry about it that much. Our friend in the back should take care of that. _She said softly as she looked back at him, feeling a twinge of her old self come out in the form of her reaching out to put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

_Why are you going to sacrifice me to that? _The young tomcat asked fearfully, taking the chance to talk to her now that they had a contact between them. She blinked in surprise and was about to soothe his doubts, but caught herself in the act and grinned darkly.

_Because, my young friend, you made the mistake of coming out here in the first place. This is my home for the time being and you have committed something called trespassing. But I won't kill you or anything. I'll even give you a ten second head start once we get inside, but after that, you have to survive on your own. Think of it as much swifter death than what I had in mind. _She thought with a grin and caressed his cheek before turning back in her seat.

_What was that about? _Bella asked.

_Nothing, just calming his nerves a little. Fear'll keep him quiet for a little bit, but I think I might have to bring him with us._ Krystal sighed before turning back to see the tomcat crying silently behind his gag. _Damnit. Yeah, make that a definitely. _

_Whatever. But if we die cause of this, I'm going to be pissed off. _Bella grumbled to herself as she stomped down onto the accelerator to send them shooting into the palace, the doors shutting behind them with a resounding boom and effectively cutting them off from the outside world and plunging them into semi-darkness, the only light coming from the headlamps on the front and roof of the buggy. They sped through the darkness, easily crashing through anything that was in there way and they finally came to an end of the darkness of the massive hallway to an even bigger courtyard, but what they were greeted with was a little disheartening.

Infront of them was a veritable army of statues, incredibly life like soldiers that seemed to be bearing down on them, though they weren't moving at all, they imposed a certain kind of nightmarish quality that made Krystal shiver. Each one stood at about seven feet tall and they were all garbed in demonic looking armor with weapons made of actual steel in their hands.

"Bella stop. Kill the engine while you're at it." She whispered before grabbing the shotgun closer to her chest. Bella did what she was told and they came to a halt at the foot of a massive statue that was towering at nearly a hundred feet in the air. Although she couldn't see it, there were massive tendrils of power coming from the army and Krystal wanted nothing to do with them, but they were blocking their way forward. She turned and cut the tomcat loose before grabbing his chin in her hand.

_I want you to get onto that turret directly above you and I need you to pull the trigger when I tell you to. I don't care how hot it gets just keep firing until I tell you to stop. _She ordered. He nodded desperately and climbed up to the gun, a Gatling turret that shot three different types of ammunition, and waited for her signal. She got out of the buggy and made sure the gun was primed before leveling her shotgun against the foot of the statue and emptying the drum of all twelve shots, considerably weakening the base and causing it sway slightly before collapsing backwards like a massive tree, slowly at first but picking up speed before slamming to the ground with a resounding crash, crushing most of the soldiers beneath its bulk as well as severing the tendrils in a few places.

"NOW!" She cried. The tomcat pulled the trigger and swung the barrel of the Gatling gun around in a wide arc, the explosive shells blowing apart the rest of the soldiers immediately after they touched them. After a solid five minutes of firing, she told him to stop and hoped that her plan had worked. To her surprise, there was nothing left of the tendrils that had been swaying almost sinisterly in a non-existent breeze. She climbed back in and asked Bella to start the buggy up and keep going.

She did just that and they sped off through the next opening just as the tendrils reformed behind them, some darting after them but giving up pursuit when they had gotten to the gardens.

"Wow…" Bella whispered to herself as they drove through the jungle that had once been the palace gardens.

There were massive plants everywhere, some brightly colored with different hues of red, blue and every other color under the rainbow. The air was muggy and heavy with humidity, but other than that and the constant buzzing of gnats, the place was a small paradise, with a green glow about it as the sun filtered through the thick canopy. They drove on and all three of them admired the beauty of this place, the sheer majesty of the size of the jungle it was in and everything.

But the reprieve was over nearly as quickly as it had started, for they drove through the jungle and were literally dumped into a dark space. The ground dropped out from under the wheels and Krystal had to draw on the magic of the mage behind her to light the way around them and they were all surprised to find that the jungle had in fact kept going, but it had encroached upon them in such a way that no sun could get in. She looked down over the edge of the buggy and was astonished beyond belief that there was no ground beneath them, just empty space.

_How can that be? The trees are still around us, but there is no ground. _Krystal thought as they continued to drive through the dark tunnel, all of them starting to get nervous as even the noise from the engine seemed to disappear, but they still moved forward. She looked closer and noticed a slight sparkle to the space directly beneath them and realized they were on a celestial walkway, or a walkway made of light.

_What did I get us into? _She thought with a creeping sensation of fear in her stomach as the trees thinned out around them after a few minutes and they were met with the sound of the buggy's engine rebounded nearly forty times louder back at them as they came into a big domed area, which looked much like an arena with fenced off stands and in the center stood a single figure. They were cloaked and hooded so that they couldn't see their face and the cloak they were wearing was dark, as if light couldn't survive around it without being sucked into its infinite darkness. Bella slid the buggy to a stop about a few feet from the figure and the only sound to be heard was that of the idling engine.

"Who are you?" She called out to the figure. They either ignored her or didn't here her, for they didn't move an inch. She sighed and was about to drive off when the figure lifted their head and the engine cut out completely, leaving them in a horribly quiet stalemate.

"My question, young Cerian, is who are you?" A raspy, yet powerful voice asked. She gulped and felt the power behind the statement, her heart beginning to hammer, as the power from the figure seemed to try and stop her heart from beating. Krystal knew with horrid certainty exactly what they were looking at, but her mind wouldn't make her believe it.

In front of them was a Rapturian King, someone with an enormous knowledge of magic and one who had learned to keep his body alive by infusing it with magic itself.

She quickly jumped out of the buggy and unsheathed her staff before twirling it in her fingers around her, the gems at the ends of it glowing brightly as she poured the excess magic she had been storing inside her from the other six mages and forced it to change shape into a pair of katannas with a slight blue coloring to the blades and crescent moon hand guards. The figure looked in her direction and gave her a slight nod, which sent a massive shockwave through her body and knocked her off her feet, throwing her a couple of yards before she righted herself and landed on the wall behind her feet first. She looked up and was slammed down to the ground as his fist connected with her cheek, the impact shattering her cheekbone and causing her to black out for a couple of seconds.

He picked her up by the scruff of her neck and his breath passed over her nose; it smelled of decay and death. He pulled back his hood and she was given a good picture of what he had once looked like; a young fox in probably his mid-twenties with jet black fur and a singe silver stripe of fur running from the tip of his muzzle all the way down to the tip of his tail. He grinned darkly at the weakened Cerian and threw her away from him before teleporting above her with a slight puff of smoke and slammed his fist into her stomach, driving the wind out of her lungs and sending her crashing to the ground with a sickening thud.

Bella climbed out of the buggy with some difficulty and swung her assault rifle around to shoot a spray of bullets his way, but he disappeared before any of them could hit him and leaving them alone for a couple of seconds.

"You know where another of my kind are, don't you?" He asked from behind her. She whipped around and got a palm shoved into her sternum before being slammed into the wheel well of the buggy with a gasp. She rolled away from his next hit and dove back into the buggy, grabbing her staff on the way out the other side and sprung up onto her feet, the blades extending from the ends as she turned around and glared at the fox.

"And what if I do? I won't let you get your hands on her." She growled as the dark presence in the staff seemed to take control of her, but this time, she had more warning than she did before and forced it to work for her. He laughed darkly, a sound that made her flesh crawl, and eyed her staff idly.

"It seems you found my weapon, Cerian. And it looks to be just as deadly as the day I lost it." He said with a grin as he vaulted the buggy to grab his staff, but she parried the lunge easily and slashed up with the blade at the end to slice into his leg as he passed. He simply ignored the pain and landed on his hands to flip up onto his feet.

Krystal coughed painfully and sat up gingerly, feeling her ribs grating against each other as she got to her feet and watched Bella start fighting the fox, matching his speed easily and evading each of his blows with a kind of fluidity that made her jaw drop in awe.

_She does know how to use magic, even if she doesn't know it consciously. _She thought to herself as she looked around at the arena, trying to find the exit. She let her eyes rove around the entirety of the dome and growled loudly in irritation, as she couldn't find the exit. She turned her eyes on the fox and ran towards them quickly, flitting in and out of existence the closer she got to them before letting the blade in her right hand drag against the stones that made up the ground in a bright shower of sparks before launching herself into the air and slicing down onto his shoulder.

The blade hit him and he disappeared, returning to the center with a bright light in his soulless, dead eyes.

"Ah, now we are getting somewhere, the Cerian mage and a Cerian warrior using a Rapturian weapon against the one who forged it. This is why I decided to keep living; to fight that one last fight against those who are worthy of my strength." He laughed before slamming his palm into the ground and pulling out a massive halberd from it, the shaft of the great weapon a black metal just like the blades on Bella's staff while the blade was a snow white and dripping blood from long dead enemies. He leveled the massive weapon onto the ground and took one step before giving it a sweeping swing along the ground, sending a harsh blast of air laced with dark energy towards them.

They blocked the scything current and Krystal spun around in time to block the blow that would've taken her head off, her knees slightly buckling beneath the blow as Bella teleported and lashed out with her blade to try and catch him on the head, but he simply disappeared and once again started launching scythes of air towards them from all around them. Krystal responded with her own blasts of air and she rushed towards him, dodging each of his blasts and quickly engaging him in heated fight, their weapons flashing in the torchlight from the massive torches surrounding the arena.

_Damn, why do we have to fight such a strong opponent now when we have to save Hazel tonight? _Bella growled mentally towards Krystal. She jumped into the fray and started attacking him as well; their blades flashing impossibly fast as they started driving him back, inch-by-inch, towards the center. He swiped out at them and jumped back before landing on a pedestal that had risen up to meet him.

_You think I have an answer to that? Besides, we can beat him; we just have to make sure he doesn't bring something worse out to fight us with. _She thought back. He smirked at them and grasped the halberd in both hands before slamming the blade onto the pedestal; a spider web of cracks appearing from the blade and encompassing the entire stone structure. There was a loud rumbling around them that caused dust and such to fall from the ceiling and onto their heads, which was closely followed by another loud roar that sounded like the one from before. Krystal created a solid bubble of magic around them to protect them from the sound and they watched in horror as a massive beast seemed to rise from the grave infront of them; its body covered in black scales while its underbelly was covered in sterling silver scales while the crown of its skull was stained crimson, like its fangs and its oversized wings. Its eyes burned with a dark flame that was mirrored around its claws and maw. It was a dragon, a king of its kind, but on Nanuet, the term dragon was meant for something else.

This, this hulking behemoth of death and raw power, of terrible might and such awesome majesty, of no soul and flames hot enough to burn ones very soul, was of another name. It was a Zydre Lyr and in the ancient Rapturian dialect, it meant Reaper of Death.

Krystal and Bella watched as the dragon reared up from the ground infront of them and tilted its head back to the ceiling before blowing a bright flame up into the ceiling, the heat able to make their eyes smart from even that distance. The fox jumped up onto its back and laughed loud as he pointed the halberd's blade down at them.

"I'm sorry, girls. It has been quite fun to fight again after all this time, but I think it is time that I ended this little masquerade of ours." He bellowed as the dragon brought down its front legs and a tremor went through the ground, shaking them and the buggy before it looked down at them with disdain and more importantly, hunger.

Krystal teleported back to the buggy and slipped her katannas back into the sheaths that had formed on her back before motioning for Bella to do the same. She did so begrudgingly and the tomcat did something no one expected, he started firing on the dragon. Krystal sent a current of magic through the buggy to restart the engine and searched with her mind for the entrance to the catacombs she knew had to be there. She opened her eyes and smacked herself on the forehead when she realized that they were on it the whole time.

"Bella, drive!" She yelled. She didn't need to be told twice. She stomped on the accelerator and they drove off towards the wall before Krystal used magic to lift the massive lid to admit such things like the Zydre Lyr into them. Bella drove around the edge of the arena, dodging in between blasts of fire and energy from the King and its mount, trying desperately to get back to the hole that sat in the ground. She pulled off a 180-drift at the last second when a blast of fire nearly melted them to a puddle and drove as quickly as possible to the hole, launching them into it as the dragon turned around to watch them leave.

_Shall we go after them, Argorak? _It asked in a booming voice. The fox laughed and twirled his halberd.

_Are you kidding, Zumisa? I haven't had this much fun in ages. Of course we go after them. _The fox laughed as the dragon roared in agreement and pursued after them into the catacombs.

Bella was driving full tilt, ignoring the lack of stench and pushing the buggy to its limits, the tomcat in the gunnery chair staring behind them incase the dragon decided to come after them and what an entrance it made!

As they flew over a dip in the catacomb floor, the dragon roared and launched itself after them, a ring of flame wreathed around it and its rider while the King had his weapon burning with a brilliant blue light.

"WE'RE COMING AFTER YOU, GIRLS!! MY FRIEND ZUMISA IS FEELING HUNGRY AFTER HIS SLEEP!!!" The fox yelled as he launched blasts of energy towards them. Bella swerved to avoid them and nearly slammed them into a pillar but veered away at the last second. Zumisa, on the other hand, wasn't as nimble and tore through it completely with a roar.

"Damnit. Kid," Krystal cried to the mage. He looked back at her and saw that she was climbing over the steel frame to get into the gunnery stand. "Move over and take the passenger's seat. I'll take care of the dragon, you watch out for any surprise that might take my head off. Got it?"

He nodded and ducked beneath the armor plating that separated the cockpit and the gunnery post before sitting down hard in the seat.

"WELL IF YOU WANT TO EAT US, COME AND GET US!!!!" She yelled over the roar of the wind as she channeled her magic through the turret and squeezed the trigger before flipping the safety and switching to armor piercing rounds. The bullets tore after them like a trail of fireflies and tore through the dragon's massively armored body, doing little damage to it, but making it very angry.

_YOU'RE GOING TO FEEL AT HOME IN MY BELLY, LITTLE CERIAN!! _He roared in her mind as another blast of flame formed in his mouth. She smirked to herself and unsheathed one of her blades before pointing it at his throat and whispered a spell that had the potential to kill her.

"Egat morelk fte demier ecnal!" She swiped the blade through the air and as she did, a sort of dimensional rip formed in the air behind them. She felt the drain already taking its toll on her body and slumped slightly against the railing of the gunnery post as her heart started beating softer against her chest. She watched as the rip widened considerably to engulf the bulk of the dragon and she watched in shock and horror as the fox swung the halberd in the air and sliced it neatly in half, ending the spell and effectively killing any plans she could think up.

_Bella… do you see a large tunnel coming up on the left side of the catacombs? _ She asked tiredly, forcing herself to get up and continue firing at the dragon.

_No, not yet… wait… yeah I see it. Want me to go down it? _ She asked. Krystal grinned and shook her head.

_No. _She said with a probe down that tunnel and, finding what she needed, jabbed down on its mind hard.

The massive beast woke up with a loud, angry roar and leapt out of the tunnel just as the buggy sped past. It turned its head to follow them and was about to give pursuit when Zumisa slammed into it and they got into a massive fight, the dragon clearly having the upper hand on the grizzly bear looking animal, but the bear had a horrible disposition and many, many razor sharp teeth in its maw.

Krystal watched as the two fought and couldn't help but laugh. She dipped down beneath the stand and used the leg guard as a backrest.

"Ahh… and now it should be smooth sailing to Alexander's palace." She muttered as Bella continued to drive down the catacombs until the ground began to steadily incline towards the surface.

Above them in the royal gardens of Alexander's palace, a certain wolf was having a heated debate with a certain fox.

"You would do well, Mr. McCloud, to know your place." Alexander growled. He was fully garbed in his battle armor and had made sure that his servants had buffed, polished and repaired every inch of the suit of armor before the reveal of his latest prize.

"I understand that, Alexander, but that is my friend you have locked up somewhere in your palace and even though it seems you have bought her, I cannot condone such acts in my presence. You may have hired me for some 'protection', but as long as she is here, I will not lift a finger to protect you or your subjects." Fox growled back, his arms crossed over his black flight vest and his eyes glinting with a hard edge to them. The wolf glared darkly in his direction and thought about cutting him down for his insolence, but controlled his rage and sighed through his teeth.

"Regardless of your opinion," He sneered and spat before he continued. "_Mr. _McCloud, the Rapturian stays with me until I find I have no longer use for her. Then you can have whatever soulless husk is left." He smiled forebodingly at the shocked vulpine and walked off to take his place on the thrown in the Great Hall. Fox watched him walk off and longed to shoot him in the head, but suppressed the urge and walked off to find Slippy, wondering if he had gotten the preparations ready for Hazel's stay with them.

One way or another, they were getting her out of there.

Bella drove out of the hole in the ground that they had come to and gave Krystal a smile as she noticed how close they were to the palace.

"Okay you were right." She said as she caught the smug look on her face.

"I usually am." She replied as she looked at the twinkling windows of the palace and its surrounding guard posts. The buggy began to slow the closer they got to the palace walls and they drove around the outer edge trying to find a good place to come in with out being seen.

In the end, they went through the front gate, leaving a couple of dead guards in their wake. Bella parked the buggy in the cover of an awning near the exit and tossed the keys to the tomcat.

"This is yours now. Take care of it and I might show you a few things when I get back." She said with a wink as she rummaged through her pack and fished out a pair of small knives before handing them to Krystal, but she shook her head and motioned to the blades on her back with a murmured spell. They glowed brightly for a second and on her arms were gauntlets with armor plating on the top of the black leather of the arm guards and blades that slid out from hidden slots underneath them.

"I got my own, thanks. Now, get into position in the herbal garden on the east side of the palace. There should be an exit from the Great Hall there and that should be where Hazel will make her escape. Knowing people like Alexander, he will try to get her back, so be careful. He knows how to use magic, so don't underestimate him." She said as she put a hand on her shoulder and smiled slightly before patting her cheek. "Just think of it as sparring with me, only if you lose, you either die or become a pet. Soooo no pressure." She gave her a thumbs up and ran off, leaving Bella to shake her head in disbelief.

"She can take this so lightly… wonder what makes her serious." She thought as she turned back and began to relay their plan to the tomcat, who she learned went by the name of Dominic.

Krystal ran hard towards the gardens on the west side of the palace and made sure she stuck to the shadows before she used a tree to vault into the harem chamber that Alexander kept for his normal pets. She dropped down from the balcony railing and quietly padded into the room, the smells of different incenses and soaps tickling her nose as she made her way to the door.

"You seem to be in quite a hurry to leave this place. Why is that? It's so pleasant in this room that I can't begin to wonder why anyone would want to leave." A giddy voice said behind her. She whirled around, the hidden blade on her left arm already springing out of its housing to impale the person behind her. But there was no one there. "Ah, ah, ah. Much to slow if you want to live." The voice chided as someone gave her a harsh kick to the spine. She pitched forward and rolled to her feet before realizing that she had been pushed into a bath of scented water.

Infront of her was something that vaguely looked like a human, but she was completely swathed in shadows, her eyes burning with a bright blue flame and a giddy smirk on her slender lips. In her hand was a broadsword that had rust spots on it in places and was coated in blood. She grinned at the Cerian and brought the blade up to run her tongue along its bloody edge, obviously enjoying the taste.

"Who or… what are you?" Krystal asked, reverting the gauntlets to its staff state, feeling that she wouldn't have any need for them at the moment. The woman laughed and stuck the tip of her blade into the tile, piercing it and leaning against the cloudy pommel stone with her elbow as she examined her fingernails with a bored look on her face.

"I'm just a demon Alexander summoned to keep his prize from being kidnapped, that's all. If you want my opinion, I don't see what the fuss is about a Rapturian anyway, but I guess its like finding another planet filled with Cerians." She shrugged and looked at Krystal with a lust filled grin. "But I'm getting ahead of myself and I do have a job to do, so," She appeared behind Krystal with her blade already swinging down to chop her head off. "Let's have some fun!"

The blade hit the shaft of her staff and bounced off of it before Krystal lashed out with her foot and slammed it into her stomach, sending her flying back a few feet and skimming across the deep bath. She turned around and leveled the staff against her shoulder.

"That the best a demon can do?" She asked before letting her magic show in the form of a carbon copy of her that stood next to her, this Krystal using a halberd that looked nearly identical to the King's. They rushed at the demon and they quickly gained the offensive, forcing her back against their onslaught. She began to sweat against the strength of their blows and roared darkly as she swiped the sword in a wide arc that decapitated the shadow Krystal and forced her to draw the magic back in.

"You seem to be very adept in magic." She growled as she dipped the blade of her sword into the water and sliced up into the air, the water acting like a scythe and slicing straight past Krystal and make a large crescent mark in the wall. Krystal sighed and touched the slight cut that had appeared on her cheek.

"And you seem to be very rash and angry." She muttered as she dipped her staff into the water and as it came out, the end of it was now the blade of a spear mixed with the blade of a battle pike. She disappeared from sight and dropped out of thin air to step behind the demon, her eyes wide in shock as a large slash sliced into her chest. Krystal whipped her blade around and cleanly sliced her head off, effectively destroying her in a burst of dark energy. She turned and walked back over the water, her feet leaving a dirty trail as the water cleaned them off. She shed her shawl and stood in her Cerian garb, albeit a little less revealing, before leveling the spear against her shoulder lightly. She came to the door and it opened itself, as her magic was still going a little rampant at the moment and she found that having the power waving around her in such a way was unbelievably pleasurable.

She walked the halls of the palace, trying to find some way to leave the building until she decided to just teleport her way up onto the roof. She appeared on the corner of the roof and quickly slew the archer standing there, dragging his body and leaving it against the wall so that it wouldn't fall over the edge. She did the same with the other three and took her position at the window over looking the proceedings. She couldn't believe her eyes.

Sitting there with a nervous yet determined look in his eyes was none other than Fox McCloud, the one who had pushed her away and forced her to leave. She felt an overwhelming sadness envelope her, but she shook the feeling from her body and let her eyes rove the audience hall for any sign of Hazel, but she didn't have to look far. She was standing next to Alexander with a look of pure loathing on her features, the effect of it all the more chilling by the fact that she had black fur that reminded her of the King's and her arm was pure metallic. Her eyes were the color of freshly spilt blood and she had glanced up in her direction for a split second. She dodged out of sight so she wouldn't be seen and felt a deep surge of hatred running through her body for Alexander, but she knew that she couldn't show her face to either Fox or Hazel, lest her memories haunt her for a long while.

She whispered a spell under her breath when she deemed it the right time and waved her hand at the window to guide the wind towards the candles in the Great Hall, blowing each of them out and drenching the room in darkness as she teleported back to the ground, waiting for Bella to finish her part of the plan. She tested the new reach of her staff and smiled lightly as she easily cleaved through a nearby wall.

_This is going to be fun to use. _She thought as she collapsed the spear and put it onto her back before sitting down onto the front steps of the palace with slightly heavy sigh, feeling as if she deserved a rest.

_Krys, you need to leave. I'm bringing Hazel over your way now and if you don't want to be seen, get to running._ Bella thought as she started running after Hazel, her thoughts in a slightly spastic order as she watched her run, her mind trying to overpower her duties with very distracting images. Krystal sighed and got up before going back into the palace, knowing that she could go back to her Shadow Flyer anytime she felt like to keep a watch on Hazel if need be.

_Take good care of her, Bella. She needs a good friend now and I'm not the one for that job. _Krystal called back.

_Wait, you aren't going to stay to-_ She was cut off when she watched Hazel get blindsided by Alexander.

_Bella… Bella come on answer me… _Krystal thought frantically. When she didn't get an answer, she swore and turned around to go back outside to help her friend when someone put their hand over her muzzle and a sickly smelling scent wafted into her nose, causing her limbs to crumple beneath her and her eyes to flicker before she blacked out.

The person who had drugged her dragged her into the shadows and continued out the back to the hunting grounds before drawing on her magical abilities to teleport them to her Shadow Flyer. He dumped her unceremoniously into the second chair in the cockpit and climbed into it before starting up the launch sequence and setting the coordinates for Earth. There was a slight flash from the lights on the dashboard infront of him and his face was lit up for a split second, but if she could've seen it, she would've been shocked into a stupor.

It was none other than Panther Caruso of StarWolf.

_**It seems that Krystal was following Hazel for a while and Panther is working for a different side. **_

_**And for those who said or that Hazel was a whore (or wa-hore if you say it that way), she isn't. Krystal said it herself, Alexander knew how to use magic. Which means that he could mess with the minds of his servants, guards or pets as he saw fit, so there. **_

_**Anyway, there are a few things I want to clear up. **_

_**First: Krystal's spear is just another form of her staff and in no way is a play off of Krzy Krn K.'s spear for Henry, though the idea did sort of come from his story. Sorry bout that ^_^;**_

_**Second: I did take the hidden blade idea from Assassin's Creed II, so I don't want any grief about it. **_

_**Third: I chose not to use the name Kursed for this chapter because I wanted to portray a sort of mixed Krystal, one who embodied both the ruthlessness of Kursed and the caring of Krystal. After FaU is done, I'll probably do a spin off for her, depending on how this ends. **_

Fourth: This chapter ties in with both Forgotten and Unforgiven as well as Infected because it shows that Krystal still has ties with her friends and she's following a sort of prophecy that her father had once told her on Ceria about a Rapturian who would need her help one day.

_**Fifth: I hope you guys like this little oneshot and review afterwards. **_

_**Last but not least: Go read Krisis by Krzy Krn K. It is amazing and it is one of the best StarFox stories I have read. Can't wait for more from you man and review some more of my stuff!**_


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